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1.5.1-Pilferingapples
=Brick!Club, Les Miserables: 1.5 Ch. 1&2 Sorry for missing yesterday, club! THINGS have been going on, but THAT IS NO EXCUSE, apologies, apologies. Will probably happen again BUT I WILL TRY TO AVOID IT. Anyway! Les Miserables, Brick!Club, Bk 1: Fantine, Bk.5: The Descent Ch 1&2 Ch. 1: History of an Improvement in Making Jet Beads Or: OH MY GOSH IS THIS A NEW MAIN CHARACTER IT TOTALLY IS OR MAYBE NOT WINK WINK I’m always going to wonder how this book would read to someone with no foreknowledge of it. Here’s this mysterious old guy who makes beads! Who could he be? Actually, you know what, I’m gonna cut Hugo a lot of slack with this. We all like to laugh at his “COULD IT BE IT’S JEAN VALJEAN” silliness, and in later chapters that is SO deserved, but at this point he’s been introducing and dropping character every section, including some who were PRETTY MAJOR; he’s really laid his groundwork for this maybe being a new person (although the whole “AND THAT’S WHY NO ONE CHECKED HIS PASSPORT” thing is clumsy there). SO I WILL CUT YOU SOME SLACK, HUGO, but don’t do it again (spoilers: he will do it again). Anyway! My own theory on Valjean MYSTERY MAN’S shocking salvation of the bead industry is that everything he suggests is actually facenose obvious- I mean, bending the wires instead of soldering them? SUPER OBVS. But everyone in town grew up doing it a certain way, and the intertia of tradition kicked in, and suddenly WHO IS THIS MYSTERIOUS STRANGER WITH HIS NEW WAYS AND SHOCKINGLY PRACTICAL IDEAS AND AWFULLY CONVENIENT HOUSE FIRES NOT THAT WE ARE IMPLYING ANYTHING I MEAN WE WOULD NEVER, HE’S A HERO AND ALSO I THINK HE JUST PUNCHED OUT A HOUSE?!? SO WE ARE NOT IMPLYING ANYTHING, and whammo, innovation! Ch. 2: Madeleine Or, Hugo Really Does Not Think Much of Townspeople, Geez And innovation get a very confused response! Seriously, this whole chapter swings between Hugo saying “AND EVERYONE IN TOWN LOVED MYSTERY MADELEINE” and “EVERYONE WAS TOTALLY GOSSIPING ABOUT HIM AND TRYING TO MAKE UP SHADY MOTIVES THAT NEVER QUITE FIT.” , because Hugo does not much like gossip, have we established this yet? Buuuuut I think if a guy charged into my town on the evening of a fire and then got all super rich I would also be interested in just what his deal was? I don’t think I’d call him an “adventurer” though. That’s weird. Did he perhaps find the key to better black glass by fighting a dragon for ancient knowledge? (No, I know it’s linguistic drift, but I NEED FUNNY OKAY) Obligatory Line From This Chapter That Gets Me: “Are you afraid of the good you might do?” Because, yes, he probably is. Doing Good like that means public attention, and it means more of a reflection on the good he hasn’t done in the past, and more awareness of all the things he isn’t getting done now, because he’s set himself up for that, really (you know, assuming this guy is Valjean MIGHT NOT BE HE IS A MYSTERY), so all the good he’ll ever do is just a reproach on what he hasn’t done/can’t do, and any attention is too much like a reward besides being a threat, because he has to be the best possible human being or he’s a monster now, which is…not what the Bishop was after but OKAY VALJEAN YOU GO GET ON WITH THAT. Oops. “Madeleine”. Right. Commentary Gascon-en-exile I have very little time and am already behind both in Brick club and in my writing schedule, so just a few quick notes for both chapters: 1. Valjean Madeleine is the French Thomas Sutpen (of Absalom, Absalom!), showing up in town with seemingly no past and going on to become the biggest and most influential guy in all of M-sur-M. That he does this with none of Sutpen’s amorality is all the more remarkable, especially in the face of all that lovely town gossip showing its head in a big way for the second time in the Brick. 2. Like almost every person seeking to enforce sexual morality in the history of, well, ever, Madeleine’s rules regarding the factory are heterosexist. The original French even separates his motto by gender: “''soyez honnête homme! soyez honnête fille!" As someone who has attended an all-male high school and lived in all-male university dorms, I may say with confidence that this, as with any act of gender segregation, is just asking for homosexual shenanigans (i.e. the best kind of shenanigans). 3. The conspicuous religiosity of Madeleine’s political rival doesn’t seem to me as reprehensible as Hugo no doubt wants it to be, but then so much of religion here in New Orleans seems to be nonverbal expressions of “I’m/we’re more Catholic than you" that I don’t really agree with his assertion that this is a peculiarity of the time. Judging by the state of the Church in France during the Bourbon Restoration as represented in ''Le Rouge et le Noir, though, it might be true that ambition expressed through displays of piety was a bit more common at this time. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t bother me morally, that’s all. Kalevala-sage Since I am allegedly Pilf’s “Sibling in Sacking Out at the Computer” (and also because I have a closing performance to get to)—I’ll keep this belated post short. Though of course I can’t post any grievances about binarism with this author in the context of his century, the casual sexism of the factories is predictably grating. Heterosexism is a valid complaint given the morality Madeleine is ostensibly propagating, too: that Madeleine “''avait divisé les ateliers afin de séparer les sexes et que les filles et les femmes pussent rester sages''" is enriched once more by the double meaning of "sage,” though this time it only serves to multiple the offense in implying that a) women cannot be wise (morally, I’m assuming) when held up to men, nor can they be b) “good” because obviously they cannot comport themselves around testosterone. Oh, well, at least these stringent divisions will protect Fantine from harrassment…wait… I’m also a little curious as to the narrative’s continued emphasis on education as it relates to our characters. In my last post, I discussed Hugo’s amplifications of undesirable traits in his villains, but that theory isn’t really in accord with the public’s castigation of Valjean’s “ignorance” and “low education” and the fact that “''Il n’est pas du tout prouvé qu’il sache lire'',” we don’t know if he’s literate. Yesterday I omitted that Fantine’s illiteracy is similarly emphasized when she checks up on Cosette, by “''écrivant, ou, pour mieux dire, faisant écrire, tous les mois afin d’avoir des nouvelles de son enfant.” If you’ll excuse my lousy translingual quote integration, what good does the appositive do? Almost anyone engaging Les Mis is necessarily a reader, so we’re naturally inclined to admire those who ''can read; on the other hand, there may be an argument to be made about pitying the illiterate, as their incapability adds a dimension to their destitution…but certainly not in the case of a maire! Pilferingapples (reply to Kalevala-sage) NecroPosting because (a)language! (b) the heck is an appositive why does it matter I’m ignorant help © wouldn’t illiteracy be even trickier for a mayor? Isn’t there paperwork and such? Not that Valjean’s illiterate…(d) WHY ARE COMPUTERS SO SOOTHING I think I have spent 27 of the last 24 hours asleep in my monitor’s healing glow, what is going on. :P